VRBehavior

I'm sitting on a B&M short shifter for my 92 VR6SLC and I had everything taken apart in the console but there's a tiny part of the outer housing thats keeping me from pulling out the rod in the shifter. I'm wondering if the exhaust has to be dropped down in order to install the shifter. I'm kinda ticked that I followed the instructions and a little 1cm protrusion ruined the whole thing (in instructions were using pics from a 97 Passat console though:-\)